They Are Who They Are Collection
by aquarianamelia
Summary: What pivotal events happened to make the people of NCIS who they are today? Partly inspired by the song We R Who We R by Kesha, which was a NCIS fanvid to boot! Team Collection!
1. Jenny

The rum smelled good.

Better than good in fact.

It smelled of memories.

When it hit her tongue, it burned with a searing intensity that continued as it flowed down her throat, and seemed to linger there, like the memory of a kiss or a grazed knee. She understood, even though she poured just a little into her glass, why her mother had loved it so. Well, not the rum. Rum was not her poison. It was good old, cheap and slutty beer.

Her daughter, however, was a different kettle of fish. She had seen what it had done and was extremely wary of it. But sometimes, she just wanted to turn the tables.

Turn the tables. That phrase made her smile. Her mother had physically turned the tables when she had collapsed into one decades ago, coming up to Christmas. The shit had certainly hit the fan that year. Feliz Navidad her ass. That was the winter that her mother, in a blind and jealous rage, had told her truths she had hinted at for years.

Her green eyes burned with the intensity of that flashback. Her father had been back from Egypt that Christmas, and she had missed him so much. They were extremely close, for a father and daughter with army challenges, and she tried to talk to him every week. They only got closer when Jenny got to college.

She didn't really get on with her mother, and Jenny liked to act out in school, she had a habit of covering school property with graffiti without a second thought. She was a bright kid, kind of walking the tightrope between goody-two-shoes and attention seeker. The last thing on her mind was boys, but she did love playing with their minds, but never let anyone in. There was a 'School Jenny' and 'Another Jenny'. They couldn't have been more different, but after _that _Christmas, the lines, which could blur sometimes, got blurrier than Jenny's present eyesight.

'_Mom, please, come on. It's time to go to bed.' A fourteen year old Jenny pleaded, wide-eyed, at her mother. She didn't even recognise her anymore. Her eyes were red and bloodshot from her binging and her heavily lidded eyes kept threatening to close. _

_She picked up the cigarettes that her mother reached for, her reflexes superhuman compared to that of her mother's slurred movements and harsh words that she winced off. She didn't want to show her how much her words hurt, but her eyes were burning _so _bad._

'_Gimme my cigarettes, you little bitch!' She stumbled blindly, groping at the ornate Georgian fireplace as she regained her balance. The last things that she needed were cigarettes. God, if she got her hands on some, she'd probably burn their brownstone to the ground._

'_No. I want you to stop. Please. I hate seeing you like this. It's not fair.' _

'_You have no right to judge me. You and him, looking at me, watching me. All. The. Time._

_And then a thought crossed her mind and she shouted: 'You love those damn cigarettes more than you love me, dont'cha? Just go to hell!'_

_She walked coldly out of the living room, her shoulders set. She stormed into her father's study, slamming the door as she went. _

'_You tried, honey. At least you tried. Just leave her to sleep it off, and she'll be right as rain in the morning, don't worry.' Her father tried to reassure her as she threw herself on to the chaise longue opposite his desk, shooting him a dirty look. _

'_Yeah. You were a great help, thanks.' She knew her words were bitter, but she wanted him to hurt. Hurt like she did. He had no idea, especially when he was deployed, how bad things could get._

'_Jen, look, I'm-' his words were cut off by a crash in the next room, and Jenny jumped to her feet, racing toward the sound, her heart pounding._

She shivered, back in the present. She knew her mother wasn't badly hurt, just a couple of bruised ribs, but they had never been able to repair the table. And it had been one Jenny was particularly fond of, but when she saw it, she calmly picked up her mother and swept up the remains of the antique.

She smiled, thinking of the look on her father's face, coming home when her mother had gone out shopping, only to find his little girl burning the broken table and throwing bottles of his finest liquor as well as the cheap beer his wife favoured into the bonfire, watching it burn with a look of malevolent satisfaction etched on her young features.

That was the first of many turning points for Jenny. No longer would she wait, scared to death that her mother would fall down their huge staircase or the like. She waited, staring her mother down until she went to bed frogmarching her up those same stairs, locking her into her bedroom.

_The first night she had tried to act casual, reading a book on the couch as her mother watched TV, surreptitiously trying to fix herself a drink. Jenny stood up and feigned stretching. Her mother whipped around when she got up, her bleary eyes taking in Jenny's stretch. 'You going to bed? Sick of watching me?'_

'_No, Ma. That's not true I mean I'm not watching, but I am going to bed.' Her mother's voice was sharp, as usual. 'Don't be smart.'_

_Her heart was pounding, but she knew she had to do it, she had to, or she'd never get _any _sleep. Jenny sighed inwardly. 'Can I show you something? Upstairs? Please?' she got a grumbled response. 'It's in your room.' She left that open for interpretation and she opened the living room door, adding cautiously, 'Coming to check it out?' _

_She went to take her mother's arm on the staircase, but she jerked it away. 'I am NOT an invalid; I don't need your help.' Jenny shrugged it off, used to it by now. Little did her mother know, but things were going to change. Noemi, their new housekeeper, had left hours before, but Jenny had made sure that her mother's bedroom was nice and warm. She wasn't cruel enough to make her mother freeze._

_They entered the room, and Jenny quickly brought her mother over to the bed. 'Stay here for a second, I have to check if it's still there,' she crossed to the window, visually checking the lock on the window so as not to alert her mother. She walked back over to the door. 'Look, Mom, I still love you, but this is for your own good.'_

_Without waiting for a response, she shut the door quickly and locked it without hesitation, taking the key with her._

_That night, she didn't sleep much, as usual, so she took up her usual perch downstairs. Her mother shouted and screamed, beating at the door with her fists as if she was possessed, but Jenny sat in the living room, just watching TV, blocking her out with the loud volume. The next morning, her mother didn't remember a thing._

Sometimes she overslept for school, but she didn't care. She would get up and out of the house as soon as she could, oblivious to her mother puking her guts up in the master bedroom's ensuite bathroom after the previous night's escapades. Sometimes, when she showed her face just as Jenny was going out the front door, she got in a snide remark, just because she was still hung-over. She took it in her stride, because she knew she would get verbally bashed for it later.

'_Why is your hair tied up like that, Jennifer?'_

'_Jennifer Shepard, fix that skirt right now. You look like a hooker, positively shameful.'_

'_Jennifer, what is that _stuff _on your face? Running off to the circus?'_

Jenny smiled into the tumbler. Her mother would be eating her words now.

Now she was the first female Director of an armed agency, she didn't give a damn anymore. She wore short skirts and makeup and she wore her hair whatever way she wanted. She sipped her rum, whilst simultaneously flipping the bird to the photo of her mother beside the fireplace, and deciding that she preferred bourbon and the man that went with it anyways. Setting down her glass, she reached for her phone and dialled one on speed dial. She heard him pick up, and announced, 'Let's talk. I have a bottle of rum for me to burn, an empty fireplace and some bourbon with your name on it. Get your ass here in ten.'


	2. Jethro

The yellow Dodge Challenger came to a stop just outside the iron fencing, over which straight, Gothic letters proclaimed 'Stillwater Cemetery'.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs sat in the driver's seat. He ran a hand over his weathered face, debating whether to go in or not. It had been years, what harm could a couple of more do? He took a deep breath and exited the car swiftly before he changed his mind. He slammed the door shut and walked over to the old, rusted gate. He laid his hand on it, pushing gently to open it. The memories came flooding back as soon as his foot crunched gravel, as he wound his way up the well-worn path of the graveyard, his footsteps echoing in his memories. He had been young then, just barely fourteen, but nearly as tall as his father, and he would yet outgrow him, so his mother liked to say. How he longed to hear her voice again.

_He walked through the graveyard, barely glancing at the countless other headstones. No-one else knew how he was feeling right now. And if they did, he sure as hell didn't want to know. He could hear his father talking behind him, giving quiet orders as the cortege made its way up the slight incline. His mother was already there, waiting for him in the hearse. The ceremony sped past in a blur. He fell to his knees as he knelt over the hole, and he heard whispers for his safety, but he ignored them, kissing the coffin as it was lowered past him, into the ground. _

_As he rose to his feet, his father gripped his shoulder tightly. He couldn't believe it. That she, once so full of life, now was in the gaping pit that would be her eternal resting place. He felt his father gently nudge him forward as he threw a single pink carnation over her coffin._

_The suit was too itchy and uncomfortable in the summer afternoon, not to mention too small. Hell, it wasn't even his. It was some rental suit his uncle had brought with him from Pittsburgh in a rush when he had heard 'The Terrible News'. That's what everyone was calling 'it', 'The Terrible News'. It sounded like a bad newspaper headline. He wiped the silent tears angrily away. This was all so stupid. She didn't deserve to leave. He had wanted her to stay so bad. It wasn't fair._

That was his first true brush with the Angel of Death, but, looking now at the ceramic picture of his mother on the well-kept gravestone, little had he known, back then, that it would not be his last_._

_He had hated seeing her in those last couple of weeks, even though he didn't know back then that she would be leaving him so soon. If he had, he would have stayed home with her. He hated thinking about it, even now, about how frail and small she had looked. With her tiny hands, which had once been strong enough to hold him high up to reach things from the pantry, now looked barely able to hold a baby bird. Her face was as white as dirty snow, and it broke his heart even more to see her eyes, which were a bewitching turquoise, clouded with pain. Sometimes he thought she didn't even realise he was there._

_But what he had loved most was her hair. He had loved, when he was upset, how she allowed him to brush it gently, fascinated by how the light fell on it, be it in the summer sunshine or in the soft glow of an evening candle burning near. It was so soft, and it hung straight and long, just past her shoulders. She wasn't like other mothers. _

_Now, his memories of her flowing mane were tainted with flickers of what she had become. Her hair was brittle like straw, and he had seen long strands on her pillow. He had become afraid to touch her like a normal person, so afraid that if he hugged her too tight, she would shatter like a china doll and be scattered in a thousand pieces on the floor._

_He was so sick of being afraid, just so sick of missing her already. He felt only fear and loneliness, the rest was numb. He wanted to feel something else. He wanted her back and he wanted to hug her and brush her hair, not to be fearful of crushing her._

_He would never get the chance to do that again. _

It was a different kind of grief from that of losing Shannon and Kelly, because even though he knew she was sick, he didn't think she would leave him so quickly. Because that is what she had done, left him all alone. Shannon and Kelly had been mercilessly ripped from him, so it was different. It was the same, but oh so different. They were all gone.

He turned away from the grave and walked quietly back to the car, where he sat in silence. The team would be looking for him, he reckoned, so he'd better start heading back. Just as he reached for the car keys, they slipped from his grip, where they fell under the seat he was in.

Frowning, he bent forward awkwardly to retrieve them, his hand brushing the under seat tray as he patted around blindly for them. He stopped, yanking out the tray as he sat back up. He smirked, brushing aside the old dust rug to reveal a plaque that had rarely seen the light of day since the day it had been carved. He couldn't believe the old man had kept it all this time. He re-covered it, his eyes flicking over the message he had already memorised years ago. He had cut and scratched his hands until his chisel work was perfect, determined to do a good job that he would be proud of.

_To Mom & Dad, _

_Happy Anniversary, _

_From Leroy. _


	3. Ziva

_A/N: I was stuck for what to write for Ziva, but the events of Shabbat Shalom not only shocked me senseless, but it kind of gave me inspiration._

* * *

McGee's face, as he glanced at Gibbs, made her worry more than the shooter's words; she shook him, trying to get an answer, and there it was, in his eyes, but she couldn't believe it. She ran past him, into the house, where she saw Tony just _standing_ there. He looked toward her as she hurried in, and he just looked at her.

Blind panic surged through her veins as she saw him slumped against the door frame like some sort of perverted puppet with its strings severed, bloodstains like roses on his shirt. She let out his name in a strangled cry as she rushed past Tony to get to him.

This couldn't be happening. Not now. It wasn't happening, it was all a nightmare, it just had to be. She fell to her knees beside him as she reached for him. His skin was not that cold, but she knew.

There was no light in his eyes anymore.

She felt as if her gut had been wrenched from her body, and she just held her father's body close to her own, sobs wracking her body as she whispered to him quietly, not even noticing she had slipped back to her mother tongue. She put her small hands in his, clutching one of his large, old hands between both of her shaking ones as she had done countless times as a child.

_Look, Aba, give me your hands!_

_Without waiting for an answer, the little dark-haired girl seized his hand and held it palm-to-palm with his own, smiling broadly. _

_His hands eclipsed hers endlessly, and he couldn't help but smile, nearly as widely as his daughter._

_Little Ziva didn't know how many deaths that his large hands had caused, or how her own pudgy ones would soon surpass his violent toll. She had shown promise, sure, but that was just her way of showing her big brother Ari that she wouldn't be pushed around, and he had to admit how proud he had been when she tackled him to the patio floor, her curls bouncing in the sun, and sat on his chest smugly. Ari had learned his lesson and had never attempted to take her G.I. Joe doll again._

She looked down at their intertwined hands, which were wet with tears. She wiped them gently away, but the tears just wouldn't stop flowing. Her mind was racing; If she had been there, she could have stopped this? What was the last thing she had said to him? Was her anger and fury, but above all, her resentment, the last thing he would remember?

She would never get the chance to ask him. She was all alone now.

She was an orphan.

* * *

_Not all that long, I know, but, as aforementioned, I'm in a tad bit of shock._


End file.
